Teaching About Privilege to the Privileged *

Teaching About Privilege to the Privileged* Dr. Tracy L. Robinson-Wood Third Race Relations Conference on New England Campuses Northeastern University November 16, 2006 * Amended for web posting. Do not quote from without permission from the author

Overview • Discuss white skin and other sources of privilege • Discuss socially constructed meanings and discourses about privilege • Increase awareness of privilege toward the development of insight, transformation, and justice-oriented action

Overview • Enhance understanding of privilege and its maintenance of hierarchy • Explore strategies for teaching about privilege

What we are not going to do • Focus on the five F’s often associated with Diversity • Food • Festivals • Fabric • Focus on people of color (not Whites) • Focus on feeling good (not honoring the difficult, uneven, and hard places)

A Lens to See Through • In this presentation, a constructionist perspective is used • It suggests that society creates race, gender, sexuality as meaningful categories of privilege among people

A Lens to See Through • A Constructionist perspective is different from an essentialist perspective which suggests identities exist independent of our perceptions

Discourses Defined • Uses of language • Hidden meanings used in place of overtly stated verbal exchanges that operate as forms of social practice to communicate and perpetuate particular meanings

Discourses • Discourses regarding privilege, oppression, and diversity often reflect confusion about • Meanings • Populations • Distinction between stigmatized identities and internalized oppression • Dialectic—people often possess privileged and stigmatized identities

Stigma • Bodily sign designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of an individual

Stigma • Stigma involves objectification and devaluation • Objectification refers to people being treated as if they were objects, members of categories rather than people with a multiplicity of characteristics

Question • What are unconscious and/or unspoken discourses about privilege?

Unearned Privilege (white skin) • An invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks which can be counted on daily but about which the person was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious • From Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege

Race • Race often functions as a grandmaster status, eclipsing, dominating, and overwhelming other markers, such as: • Professional dress • Other attire (briefcases) • Standard English

Guiding Tenet, 1 • Some dimensions of diversity function as master statuses • Race • Class • Gender • Sexuality • Ethnicity • Disability • Religion

Question • How do discourses about privilege show up and what does their presence mean in the classroom, meetings, and in service delivery?

Guiding Tenet, 2 • Dominant discourses may be unconscious and pervasive throughout society

Guiding Tenet, 3 • Having unearned privilege is not a negation of oppression in one’s life • Not having unearned privilege is not an indication of powerlessness and inferiority

Reactions to learning about privilege • Hostility at the messenger • Anger • Confusion • Guilt, embarrassment, shame • Denial • Minimization of the information • Rationalization • Avoidance of difference, focus on similarities

Consequences of privilege (oblivion) • Fear of and discomfort with others perceived to be different • Feeling that people perceived to be different lack what we have • Lack of awareness about one’s privileged identities • Guilt feelings or feeling like one is supposed to feel guilty

Consequences of privilege (oblivion) • Limited emotional and intellectual development • Inability to experience empathy for others’ perceived to be different • Attributing powerlessness and disadvantage to people who do not have unearned privilege

Teaching About Privilege • Have a good support system • Have clear boundaries and expectations • Allow people to feel what they feel

Teaching about Privilege • Narrative • Encourage students to read other people’s narratives and stories about privilege, oppression, and diversity • Encourage students to write their own personal narratives and explore privilege, oppression, and diversity

Teaching About Privilege • Develop your spiritual life which fosters a connection with all living beings

Teaching About Privilege • Be aware of greater similarities between people than differences • The Human Genome Sequencing Project has confirmed that humans do not fit into the biological criteria that defines race • The DNA of humans is 99.9 percent alike

Teaching About Privilege • Know the cultural competencies for your profession

Teaching About Privilege • Be aware of and honest about your location in privilege and oppression discourses • On a regular basis, name your personal biases, fears, and attitudes about sources of difference to yourself and others

Teaching About Privilege • Be aware of U.S. cultural values and practices and their reinforcement of privileging discourses: • Individualism/Autonomy/Self-Reliance • Competition • Standard English (Written Tradition) • Meritocracy and Democracy • Empiricism • Materialism/Affluence • Control, Power • Convenience • Heterosexism

Teaching About Privilege • Cultivate genuine relationships with people who are racially, sexually, and religiously different from yourself • Close friendships across sources of difference often encourage comfort with and openness to meaningful and transformative dialogue

Teaching About Privilege to the Privileged *